I knew my reality was clearly defined
By the fences put up around my mind
I watched them thicken into walls over time
Taller than any borderline
-from a song by Brett Dennen
Drink up baby doll
Are you in or are you out?
Leave your things behind
'Cause it's all going off without you
Excuse me, too busy, you're writing your tragedy
These mishaps you bubble-wrap
When you've no idea what you're like
So, let go, let go
Jump in
Oh well, what you waiting for?
-from a song by Frou Frou
I've been thinking about so much in the past couple days...it's been a particularly frustrating week in terms of things at school, what my life looks like here, the choices I make, and how those things affect my perspective. And all these thoughts have got me questioning nearly everything at the moment...what am I really doing here, am I supposed to be here, can I stick this out for however long I'm meant to? I know the short answers to these questions—sorting things out, learning more about myself and where I want to go in life; yes, even though it doesn't always feel like it, this is where I'm supposed to be right now; yes, but it's going to be hard sometimes and in those moments I'll probably question the intelligence of my decision to come back here; respectively.
But the certainty and positivity I felt in my first few weeks here have dwindled down until they've become nearly non-existent.
Last time everything was brand-new and unexpected and brilliant and what I encountered was through no choice of my own. I didn't get to divert anything uncomfortable away from me, and it was a growing experience because of that, because of how I had to deal with everything as it hit me in the face. But this time I am wanting a deeper experience, wanting the long answers, wanting to really get into it and do what I came here to do. And for some reason I thought those desires would be satisfied by having specific direction on what I'm to learn, by more thoroughly understanding things and doing so on a more immediate basis. I don't know why I thought that, though, because if there's one thing I've learned over the past year or two it's that I will almost never know the answers right away.
The irony in all of this is that the frustration is building up fences in my mind about every tough situation in which I find myself, and preventing me from jumping in to explore the depth and growth that I know lie within those situations. I am my own worst enemy right now, I am fighting myself and losing, I am the only one standing in my way. The longer I wait to make a change, the taller those walls will get and the more scary it will be to take them down and make myself vulnerable to life here. The difficulty, I think, is that I want to be vulnerable and open to whatever comes, but to do so with the strength and wisdom I didn't have last time around. And there's a disconnect there for me; I don't know what the combination of those things looks like.
Earlier tonight I found some notes I had posted on Facebook about two years ago and re-read them to find that the words I wrote back then were still relevant to me, still descriptive of how I've been feeling and what I've been going through lately. I found myself in similar positions and wanting similar things then and now. It saddens me somewhat to see that I'm still working to learn the same old lessons, but I suppose it also reminds me that life is a continuous, fluid thing. We are constantly learning and relearning and will keep on with that until we get it. And we need to remember to embrace the process and live the journey.
There's this old quarry we used to go to in the summer in Virginia—they'd filled it in with water that was a beautiful deep turquoise color and deeper than we could know. The best way to experience it was to jump off the cliffs that edged one long side of the water, and you had to climb about 30 feet up to get to the jumping point. It was a slightly scary climb; there were a few narrow points and if you slipped and fell you'd hit some rocks on the way down. And once you got to the top, it might take a little while to gather the courage to jump. But when you jumped, oh man. The few slow-motion seconds of freefall followed by the quick rush of liquid all around you as you landed in the water...incredible. You wanted to swim around for a bit then get out and climb back up right away for more. I feel like that's an appropriate analogy for my life here right now...the best way to live the journey is to jump in. And I can see the water and I know how great it's going to feel to freefall and enter the unknown depths. But first I've got to conquer my fears and make myself step off the edge.
Like I said, it's been a rough little while, and it's not going to be easy to take the steps that I know I need to take. But I came here to take on the difficult and uncomfortable and to explore new depths, in whatever form that may be. I began to build these walls in my mind, but they aren't indestructible. What waits on the other side is frightening in its unknown-ness but exciting in its possibility. And the motivation to get past the walls to what I know waits on the other side is right here waiting for me to take it, just as soon as I decide to take that step off the edge.
As always, I hope this finds you all well and happy. I don't have any new photos to post, but I will within the next few weeks as I explore more of Busan before it gets too cold to leave my apartment.
Annyeong,
Heather
22 November 2009
02 November 2009
(re-)beginning
I've watched the sun set over the 다대포 (Dadaepo) beach a few times now (the beach is a ten-minute walk from my house—how cool is that?), and each time I've had this moment in which I realized that no one, at that point in time, knew exactly where I was. And that no one around me knew who I was. This, while sitting on a beach in front of the open sea under a huge sunsetting sky...it made the world seem big around me again. It's so important to me that I'm able to feel small. Not that I enjoy feeling insignificant; no, it's that I need doses of perspective like that every so often. I think that is because it reminds me that there is so, so much more left out there to be explored and discovered and learned, and to impress upon me the importance of continuing to strive for more. Not more things, but more meaning, more connection, more happiness, more understanding, more enjoyment, more passion, more life.
And I'm beginning to think that perhaps this is what I'm meant to learn here. That striving, and how to do so when I am very much going to be responsible for creating my own life here. I feel like it's going to be quite lonely for a while, if not for the majority or all of my time here. I don't see myself developing really close friends, not a good group of the kind of people with whom I want to surround myself. I'll have a few cool people to hang out with, yes, but not a close circle of truly good friends. 다대포 just isn't home to enough people with whom I can connect for the probability of that happening to be very high. And maybe I'll be proven wrong; it's happened before :) But if I'm not...well, isn't that what I came here for? To be on my own and to learn how to better do that? I think I thought that I'd be more surrounded by people and that I'd have to make a conscious effort to spend time by myself doing what really helps me grow, whatever that may look like. Instead, my surroundings have forced me into solitude, and the conscious effort I need to make is to value this solitude and use it in the best way possible.
There is not a doubt in my mind that I've ended up exactly where I need to be. To go from living in Jamsil in Seoul, where everything was busy all the time and there were plenty of foreigners around, to living in Dadaepo in Busan, where life moves a bit slower and I am the only foreigner within a ten-mile radius, has been interesting. I don't think living in this area would be for everyone, but it feels perfect to me. There were times in Seoul when I felt so out of place, so much like I didn't fit and never would even though it had become my home. But here, it's different. It will take a bit of time to become home, and I still won't ever quite belong, but it already feels right. In those moments on the beach, I've also felt extremely lucky, so incredibly blessed to be here and to have been able to come to this country that continually teaches me so much not once, but twice, and to have learned the awareness that makes being here so incredible. I am so very grateful that I can do this because of how important it is to me to keep journeying. I mean that in a physical/literal sense and in a figurative sense, and Korea really does allow me to do both.
Some people might think that I could have had the same experience in a different country. That thought has crossed my mind as well, more than once. But every time it has, I've immediately pushed it away because I know that's not true. It was always going to be Korea, even before I knew it, even when I had my doubts and frustrations, even though it still sounds a bit strange even now...this was always where I was supposed to be.
That same anticipation that I had before coming is still with me. I'm still so curious to see what this year will bring. I feel like I've been here much longer than twelve days, in part because being here has felt like I've come home in a sense. It's not so much a continuation of what I've known in Korea before—although that's part of it—but more like a reawakening to something warm and familiar. The setting is different but the feelings are the same, and I have missed being here.
Some moments, both good and bad but definitely memorable, from so far:
-Attempting conversation in Korean with the ajummas who sit on the curb near my apartment (and mostly failing)
-Returning home at midnight from hanging out with Carly and discovering that my washer had drained into my apartment instead of outside, soaking everything (including my bed because it's on the floor)...and subsequently walking half an hour to sleep for four hours in a noisy jimjilbang
-Walking into our school's lobby for the Halloween party to find that they'd decorated with pink “It's A Girl!” balloons
-Looking for two students I'd sent to the bathroom to see them running around the bathroom, soap on the floor and faucet turned on full blast
-Adjusting the wall-mounted flat screen TV in my apartment for just the second time and watching in horror as it fell off the wall (luckily I managed to half-catch it so it didn't land on my laptop)...turns out they had just mounted it into the drywall instead of finding studs
I am still waiting to get internet in my apartment, but I spent roughly four hours in Dunkin Donuts (pretty sure they hate me for sitting there so long stealing their slow wireless) so that you lovely people can see my adventures via photos. The links to albums chronicling my journey over here and the first few weeks are below. Enjoy! I hope that this finds you all well, and thanks for all your thoughts and prayers during my journey over here!
Love,
Heather
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015172&id=148800130&l=bdd8d08300
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015186&id=148800130&l=93c1861252
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015188&id=148800130&l=4852b47497
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015187&id=148800130&l=6612e10c26
And I'm beginning to think that perhaps this is what I'm meant to learn here. That striving, and how to do so when I am very much going to be responsible for creating my own life here. I feel like it's going to be quite lonely for a while, if not for the majority or all of my time here. I don't see myself developing really close friends, not a good group of the kind of people with whom I want to surround myself. I'll have a few cool people to hang out with, yes, but not a close circle of truly good friends. 다대포 just isn't home to enough people with whom I can connect for the probability of that happening to be very high. And maybe I'll be proven wrong; it's happened before :) But if I'm not...well, isn't that what I came here for? To be on my own and to learn how to better do that? I think I thought that I'd be more surrounded by people and that I'd have to make a conscious effort to spend time by myself doing what really helps me grow, whatever that may look like. Instead, my surroundings have forced me into solitude, and the conscious effort I need to make is to value this solitude and use it in the best way possible.
There is not a doubt in my mind that I've ended up exactly where I need to be. To go from living in Jamsil in Seoul, where everything was busy all the time and there were plenty of foreigners around, to living in Dadaepo in Busan, where life moves a bit slower and I am the only foreigner within a ten-mile radius, has been interesting. I don't think living in this area would be for everyone, but it feels perfect to me. There were times in Seoul when I felt so out of place, so much like I didn't fit and never would even though it had become my home. But here, it's different. It will take a bit of time to become home, and I still won't ever quite belong, but it already feels right. In those moments on the beach, I've also felt extremely lucky, so incredibly blessed to be here and to have been able to come to this country that continually teaches me so much not once, but twice, and to have learned the awareness that makes being here so incredible. I am so very grateful that I can do this because of how important it is to me to keep journeying. I mean that in a physical/literal sense and in a figurative sense, and Korea really does allow me to do both.
Some people might think that I could have had the same experience in a different country. That thought has crossed my mind as well, more than once. But every time it has, I've immediately pushed it away because I know that's not true. It was always going to be Korea, even before I knew it, even when I had my doubts and frustrations, even though it still sounds a bit strange even now...this was always where I was supposed to be.
That same anticipation that I had before coming is still with me. I'm still so curious to see what this year will bring. I feel like I've been here much longer than twelve days, in part because being here has felt like I've come home in a sense. It's not so much a continuation of what I've known in Korea before—although that's part of it—but more like a reawakening to something warm and familiar. The setting is different but the feelings are the same, and I have missed being here.
Some moments, both good and bad but definitely memorable, from so far:
-Attempting conversation in Korean with the ajummas who sit on the curb near my apartment (and mostly failing)
-Returning home at midnight from hanging out with Carly and discovering that my washer had drained into my apartment instead of outside, soaking everything (including my bed because it's on the floor)...and subsequently walking half an hour to sleep for four hours in a noisy jimjilbang
-Walking into our school's lobby for the Halloween party to find that they'd decorated with pink “It's A Girl!” balloons
-Looking for two students I'd sent to the bathroom to see them running around the bathroom, soap on the floor and faucet turned on full blast
-Adjusting the wall-mounted flat screen TV in my apartment for just the second time and watching in horror as it fell off the wall (luckily I managed to half-catch it so it didn't land on my laptop)...turns out they had just mounted it into the drywall instead of finding studs
I am still waiting to get internet in my apartment, but I spent roughly four hours in Dunkin Donuts (pretty sure they hate me for sitting there so long stealing their slow wireless) so that you lovely people can see my adventures via photos. The links to albums chronicling my journey over here and the first few weeks are below. Enjoy! I hope that this finds you all well, and thanks for all your thoughts and prayers during my journey over here!
Love,
Heather
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015172&id=148800130&l=bdd8d08300
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015186&id=148800130&l=93c1861252
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015188&id=148800130&l=4852b47497
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015187&id=148800130&l=6612e10c26
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